A school district in New York has banned footballs, baseballs, lacrosse balls or any dangerous instrument that might hurt someone on school grounds.

“Port Washington schools Superintendent Kathleen Maloney said the change in policy is warranted due to a rash of playground injuries,” CBS New York reported. “Some of these injuries can unintentionally become very serious, so we want to make sure our children have fun, but are also protected,” Maloney said.

So the school officials deferred to the lawyers, who apparently advocate keeping children safely indoors all day where they can’t get hurt. Blunt-nose scissors and jars of edible paste are not going to hurt anyone.

During recess at Port Washington schools, “[F]ootball is out and Nerf ball is in. Hard soccer balls have been banned, along with baseballs and lacrosse balls, rough games of tag, or cartwheels unless supervised by a coach.”

In Sacramento where I live, the Sacramento City Unified School District's motto is: “Putting children first.” On the district website, not one elementary school had pictures of playground equipment or mention of athletic activities.

One school mentioned its “fitness program,” which  included doing “short stretches every morning and one activity per day,”  the school website reported. How very civilized.

The school taught jazzercise, had a healthy snack preparation demonstration, “a visit by Sacramento United Soccer League representatives to teach students about fitness and agility, and a visit by local firefighters who talked to students about the importance of physical and mental fitness.”

Presentations, talks, demonstrations … and jazzercise. How fun. But that's putting teachers first.

Rough and tumble playground

I was a total rough and tumble kid. Soccer wasn’t exciting enough, so my friends and I played tackle soccer. We climbed trees and shot beebee guns at each other. We strapped firecrackers to Barbie dolls, and well, you know.  Today, I’d be arrested and so would my parents.

On the playground at school, we played dodge ball, where you actually were supposed to hit someone with a ball to tag them “out.” Dodge ball is gone. We played crack-the-whip, where kids form a human chain and whip the kid on the end around until she goes careening off and falls. And we did cartwheels. I still have the scars on my always-scabbed knees to remind me what fun recess time was.

We ran races, where someone won and someone lost. Losing is no longer acceptable at government schools. Yet learning how to lose is as important as learning how to win.

And I got in fights but wasn't suspended.

The playground is a place where children establish social order.

The school playground back in the  1950s, 1960s and 1970s was chaos, where kids were allowed to run and play like wild animals. But it was controlled chaos, managed by the social order, and loosely overseen by the adults, who stepped in only when it got too rough.

Football is deadly

There has been a movement for two decades to ban school recess, along with school sports.

Journalist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has compared professional football to dog fighting. “In what way is dog fighting any different from football on a certain level, right?” Gladwell said in a Forbes magazine story. “I mean you take a young, vulnerable dog who was made vulnerable because of his allegiance to the owner and you ask him to engage in serious sustained physical combat with another dog under the control of another owner, right?”

“'Well, what's football?” Gladwell asked. “We take young boys, essentially, and we have them repeatedly, over the course of the season, smash each other in the head, with known neurological consequences. And why do they do that? Out of an allegiance to their owners and their coaches and a feeling they’re participating in some grand American spectacle.”

And now four professional football players are suing the NFL over concussion injuries — as if they didn’t know football was a contact sport, and were paid millions of dollars to do it.

“What does this mean for football in America?” asked Brian E. Moore, MD, on kevinMD.com. “Nothing. Fans are willing to spend a lot of money to see men slam into each other’s heads on the field. But, as a parent, you can do something. You can forbid your son from playing football.”

Humans are animals too

To use another dog analogy, the playground is like watching dogs play. Dogs run like a pack, bumping, jumping over each other, play-biting and dominating, or allowing other dogs to dominate. Kids do this too, when allowed. The playground was the place we once learned how to deal with confrontation, hurt, success, physical and emotional challenges, and to face our fears.

With today's emphasis on standardized testing and academic performance, recess and sports have been sacrificed in many schools. In 1998, Benjamin O. Canada, the superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, famously told the New York Times, “We are intent on improving academic performance. You don’t do that by having kids hanging on the monkey bars.”

A doctor disagrees with this dangerous trend. Dr. Romina M. Barros, an assistant professor and pediatrician, conducted the “School Recess and Group Classroom Behavior” study in 2009, when the trend to cut recess and sports was growing. “We need to understand that kids need a break,’’ Barros said. “Our brains can concentrate and pay attention for 45 to 60 minutes, and in kids it’s even less. For them to be able to acquire all the academic skills we want them to learn, they need a break to go out and release the energy and play and be social.’’

The playground at school today is calm and organized, where everyone is a winner. And many of the kids are taking Ritalin for Attention Deficit Disorder diagnoses. But teachers are happy. And school district lawyers can rest easy.

Let the kids play virtual sports.

Among other provisions, the Pack initiative would require random drug and alcohol testing for doctors. It also would require doctors who witness medical negligence or substance abuse by fellow doctors to report it.

Physicians that test positive for alcohol or drugs (while on duty), or who refuse to submit to testing, would be suspended from practicing medicine. And hospitals would be required to report any verified positive results of drug and alcohol testing to the California Medical Board.

Now, for voters who didn’t know any better, they might assume that the hit-and-run driver who killed tender-aged Troy and Alana was a substance-abusing doctor. But nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the culprit was a 46-year-old nanny, Jimena Barreto, who was behind the wheel of her gold 1979 Mercedes when she careened across two lanes of a Danville street onto a sidewalk where she struck defenseless Troy and Alana.

Had the proposed ballot measure that bears their names been in place 11 years ago, it would have made no difference. It would not have prevented Barreto — convicted of second-degree murder and currently serving consecutive sentences of 15 years to life — from killing the Pack children.

Lawyers

So why is Bob Pack promoting a ballot measure in his dead children’s names that has absolutely nothing to do with them? Because he’s carrying water for the state’s trial lawyers.

Indeed, a provision of the so-called Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act would revise the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, the 1975 state law that limits jury awards to$250,000 for “pain and suffering” in cases of physician negligence.

The state’s trial lawyers regard a quarter-million dollars as a mere pittance. Especially when lawyers in other states are earning contingency fees on ginormous Powerball-sized jury awards.

Like the whopping $55 million that a Baltimore jury awarded a Waverly, Md., couple after delivery of their mentally and physically disabled child at Johns Hopkins hospital. The mother tried to have her baby at home with the help of a midwife but, after hours of labor, finally decided to have an emergency Caesarean section at the hospital.

Then there was the $78.5 million a Philadelphia jury awarded a Pottstown, Pa., mom whose newborn child sustained brain damage, her lawyers claimed, because the attending physician “performed an ultrasound examination with outdated, insensitive, and poorly maintained equipment.”

That’s why the state’s trial lawyers have invested $2 million — so far — in Bob Pack’s proposed initiative. It’s not about Troy and Alana, God rest their souls. It’s about raking in multi-million dollar contingency fees.

Songs and books have been written about the importance of living every day as if it will be your last. While a seemingly noble concept, living out each day indulging in special moments and treats instead of addressing responsibilities could be seen as a little self-indulgent.

However, living as a liberal would be much more accepted and easier, far more self-satisfying and approved by the mass media.

Being a conservative in California is just too much work.

But before I fully tap into my inner liberal, I will need to practice dropping the f-bomb in casual conversation more frequently, brush up on making stinging personal attacks against people I dislike or disagree with and watch more vile television programs like “Two and a Half Men.”

Living like a liberal is going to be easy and fun, but the To-Do list is long.

It’s Time To Demand A Free Education

Because California needs one more smarmy, liberal lawyer, I plan on signing up for law school. To pay for tuition and books, as well as my considerable personal expenses while I attend, I will need massive student loans and all of the Cal-Grants I can get my hands on.

In order to qualify for the grants, I will have to dump my husband and quit my job. Life will be more enjoyable going to school instead of working, while maintaining a well-deserved and very active social life. The divorce will help seal the necessary indigence requirement for loan and grant qualification, since I am not considered part of a protected minority class.

Meet Your New Neighborhood Nanny

Because I know what’s best for all of my neighbors, friends and family, I will practice being everyone’s neighborhood nanny, beginning with turning in all of the fireplace-users and water violators in my neighborhood.

Next, I will lead the fight for water meter installation on every home in the city, usage limiters on the heating and air conditioning systems in each of the 6,000 homes in my neighborhood, as well as the requisite solar systems on the rooftops, and home water storage and recycling systems.

Every neighbor should be composting, as well.

While I will work to make sure that tiny, white twinkle lights are still allowed on homes during the generic winter holiday, no Nativity scenes, plastic Santas or Frostys will be allowed.

This neighborhood nanny will work to ban all political signs from neighbors’ lawns, because isn’t everyone who matters already liberal?

It’s All About ‘Green’

I will buy a Chevy Volt — no, I’ll buy a Tesla. I am worth the best. I will just add the $109,000 onto my student loans. The carbon offset credits from the purchase should cover me until 2050.

I will shame my “ex-husband” into dumping his SUV. He can drive a Prius like everyone else in the neighborhood.

The Journalist In Me

I will subscribe to the New York Times and the Washington Post, and start out every day listening to NPR for daily liberal talking points, and voting tips.

I will no longer need to do my own research on important economic trends, energy independence, social issues or global warming.  Like all other liberals, I will be able to get up every morning and get my fill of liberal politics fed to me as I eat my daily ration of organic multi-grain cereal with pesticide-free banana slices.

Tapping My Inner Vegan

Since I am already a vegetarian, it’s time to force my righteously healthy eating habits on everyone I encounter. It is not enough to make a scene in a restaurant when demanding special preparation of my food orders, it’s time to demand that restaurants feed everyone the way I eat.

Dreamy Social Issues

As a soon-to-be-liberal-lawyer-in-training, I plan on practicing manipulation of the law, and will demand that the government take care of everyone who wants or needs all social services.

The environment — especially the coast — will take precedence over the people of California.  We must save the ocean, save the whales, save the spotted owl, save the desert tortoise, save the Delta Smelt, save the Redwoods and Sequoias and save Malibu and Carmel while we’re at it.

Animals and prisoners have rights too. And state employees deserve their own Bill of Rights.

The Occupier In Me

Note to self: Meet up with local Occupiers to protest for a free education, free healthcare coverage, a free home, free transportation and free coffee from Starbuck’s.

Removal of the Conservative Outer Layer

The need to liberate my stodgy, conservative self is overpowering. I vow to give away my sensible dresses and slacks in exchange for more grungy, man-of-the-people clothes. Then I will stop wearing makeup, nail polish and hair products that are tested on laboratory animals. I will replace my fascist gold earrings with grommets. I’ll pierce my nose, lip, and cheek and get a sleeve of tattoos on my left arm … because I am left-handed.

The best part of this fashion change is that I won’t have to do laundry as frequently, and jewelry changes will be nil.

Liberal Mom Redux

I am going to need to talk my son into quitting the Navy. I don’t know how a kid who attended Montessori School in kindergarten found his way into the Navy.

I must have fed him too much meat when he was a child.

Rebirth As A Feminist

Becoming a card-carrying feminist should be the most fun part of being liberal: 1) Always play the victim; 2) Attack conservative women for their lofty morals and disciplined work ethic; 3) Be mean to other women; 4) Be meaner to men; 5) Hate myself for having a uterus; 6) Turn my boy children into wimps; 7) Replace husband with a girlfriend.

Tax The Rich

As an angry, activist, feminist lawyer, I will pursue changes to the tax code requiring the 1 percenters to pay more than their fair share of taxes. The rich have been enjoying their money for too long, and need to spread some of that love around.

Crass Is Cool

Lastly, I am going to contact talk radio hosts across America, and convince them to become comedians — or at least call themselves comedians. Once everyone knows they are comedians, they can say anything they want — crass, gross, disgusting, distasteful and vulgar things — and get away with it. They wouldn’t even have to be funny.

As a liberal, I’ll be able to talk like a sailor anywhere I want. I might even start watching Bill Maher without recoiling in disgust.

Rebirth as a liberal is going to be fun and easier. And maybe, just maybe, some of my old friends and dinner party acquaintances will start talking to me again. Sometimes I miss being part of the über-popular crowd.

— Katy Grimes

By KATY GRIMES

In the event of the death of a relative, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal wants employees to take four days leave from work to properly mourn – and she’s authored a bill giving employees 13 months in which to do this.

AB325 would authorize employees to take four days of unpaid bereavement leave, and would prevent an employer from retaliating against the employee through discipline or termination.

“It’s basic human dignity,” said Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat, during floor debate today in the Assembly.

Lowenthal said that employees can and have been fired by employers for even asking for time off.

I’m not sure what century Lowenthal is referring to, but 19th century sweatshops aren’t exactly representative of the average employer – particularly in California, where there are more labor and employment lawyers than employees, monitoring evil private sector employers’ every move.

Republican Assemblyman Chris Norby challenged Lowenthal’s sweatshop imagery of the state’s employers, and even mocked the 13-month bereavement leave window. “Employers and employees need to be able to work together without the blunt instrument of the law,” Norby said.

But employees who feel they have been fired or disciplined for asking for bereavement leave can file a complaint with the Division of Labor Standards or file a civil suit against the employer.

“No California employee should have to choose between employment and the loss of a loved one,” said Lowenthal, even after hearing Norby’s comments.

Most employers voluntarily provide bereavement leave to employees, which raises questions about the need for this bill.

California has so many different types of protected employee leave, that it is a miracle any work gets done. And some employees are so dialed in to the many types of leaves available, that the employer ends up hiring a replacement just to get the work done.

The California Fair Employment and Housing department lists many of the leaves available:

• Pregnancy leave
• Family leave
• Baby bonding leave
• Drug and alcohol leave
• On-the-job injury leave
• Sick or disability leave
• Military leave
• Caring for an ill or injured military family member leave
• leave for up to 40 days per year to volunteer in kids’ school
• Literacy program leave
• Court and jury leave
• Voting time leave
• Sick leave

Employers don’t like finding themselves on the receiving end of a letter from the Fair Employment and Housing department.

The bill’s analysis states that some opponents of the bereavement leave bill contend that the majority of local public sector employers are already covered by collective bargaining agreements that provide for paid leave benefits, including bereavement leave, and that this bill therefore undermines local control and the integrity of the collective bargaining process.

I argue that the bill is just another gross infringement and restriction placed on California’s private sector employers.

It’s as if Democratic legislators really don’t believe that employers are leaving the state in droves because of the increasing regulations, imposed by a deaf Legislature. And more employers will pick up and move out of California – if they can. If they can’t, they will close their doors, which always results in the permanent termination of employees.

And then who will pay the increasing corporate taxes, which Democrats say are so desperately needed?

The bill was passed by the Assembly, 46-26… along party lines… again.